Biography
G. J. Bourg, originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, was secretary of the IWW's Kansas City (Missouri) local when arrested. He was convicted at the mass IWW trial in Chicago, sentenced to ten years in prison and fined $30,000. He served in Leavenworth Penitentiary from October 1917 to December 22, 1923. Bourg was requested to take over the Kansas City, Missouri, local "after a bunch of drunken militiamen smashed up " the local union hall and "scared the former secretary into leaving town." TheDepartment of Justice admitted after Bourg's conviction that the "only written proof of Bourg's making any statement against World War I was his statement that Kansas City had " gone crazy over patriotism."
